In general, a braking device of a vehicle may be divided into a deceleration main brake used for reducing a driving speed or for temporary parking and a parking brake used for long-time parking.
The parking brake serves to brake a rear wheel or a front wheel of a vehicle in order to maintain a parking state of the vehicle.
The parking brake may be divided into a hand parking brake which a driver actuates by pulling a brake lever with a hand and a foot parking brake which the driver actuates by stepping a brake pedal with a foot.
In recent years, with the increase in the number of luxury vehicles equipped with an automatic transmission, a foot parking brake device has been widely spread, which the driver actuates by stepping a separate brake pedal with the foot.
As one example thereof, the foot parking brake device is disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0118419 and FIGS. 1 and 2 which are accompanied are diagrams illustrating a general foot parking brake device in the related art.
As illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, the general foot parking braking device 10 in the related art is provided to include a fixation brake 11 provided to be fixable to a dashboard (not illustrated) of a vehicle, a steel-made base plate 12 provided to be fixable to the fixation bracket 11 via multiple rivets, a steel-made pedal arm 15 pivotably provided at one side of the center via boss 13 and a shaft 14 by receiving one surface of the base plate 12, a cable 18 provided to one end is suspended and fixed to a cable guide member 16 fixed onto the other surface of the pedal arm 15 by burring processing and the other end is wired through a cable guide bracket 17 fixedly installed onto the bottom of a console box so as to actuate a brake for parking by being pulled to correspond to pivoting of the pedal arm 15, a fan-shaped positioning member 21 provided to have multiple stop grooves 21a so as to fix the pedal arm 15 by suspending one end to a release member 20 in which one is pivotably installed to a cover plate 19 when the pedal arm 15 pivots by being fixed to one end of the pedal arm 15, and a pedal unit 23 fixed by welding the other end of the pedal unit 15 and provided while being covered with a pedal pad 22 so as for a user to step the pedal unit 23.
In the actuation of the foot parking brake device apparatus in the related art, which is constructed as described above, a driver steps the pedal unit of the pedal arm of which one end is projected to a driver's seat side while being fixed to the dashboard of the vehicle via the fixation bracket with applying force to allow the pedal arm to pivot via the boss and a shaft to the dashboard side in a vehicle room and pull a cable of which one end is suspended and fixed to the cable guide bracket through the pivoting of the pedal arm and in this case, when the user releases the foot from the pedal stepped thereby, the positioning member is suspended to a pedal arm fixing and releasing member, and as a result, the foot parking brake is actuated, therefore, thereby maintaining the vehicle in a parking state.
In this case, when the driver pushes the pedal unit of the pedal arm toward the dashboard side in order to intend to release the foot parking brake, the positioning member is released from the pedal arm fixing and releasing member, thereby restoring the pedal arm to restoring force of a restoring spring.
However, as described above, in the general foot parking brake device in the related art, which is configured as above, since the pedal arm is pivotably installed through the fixation bracket provided to be fixed to the dashboard and the steel-made base plate provided to be fixable to the fixation bracket via multiple rivets, a weight is increased due to the steel-made base plate, and as a result, fuel consumption cannot but be promoted and the assemblability cannot but being remarkably deteriorated due to the increase in the number of components.